Your responsibilities as editor-in-chief for small(ish) quarterly

Hope this is the right place for it, if not, please feel free to move it. In any case, I wanted some opinions on this, so any and all help is greatly appreciated.

If you were asked by a start-up organization focusing on culture to come on board as editor-in-chief of a paper they are putting out, what would your stipulations and expectations be regarding pay, input from the CEOs etc? This is not a project for a friend.

The paper, a quarterly, contains twelve pages and has 2,000 issues in print. It is a unique concept that doesn't exist as such in your local area.

Of course you would check out the going rates in your local area first. However, would you do it for free in order to gain valuable experience (as this is something you have never done before and it's a decent enough platform)? And if you would do it for free, how many issues would you put out before leaving the project to someone else, expecting pay, bearing in mind that you suspect the CEOs want you to do the marketing as well.

How much input would you expect / take from the CEOs of the company the paper is for? Say that they want to suggest themes for an issue, how often would you let them suggest a theme? And if a theme goes against your beliefs, would you still do it? Say, if you were against Green Peace, but they wanted you to do an issue on Green Peace.

If there was a conflict between the printer and you, as in they want to run one-page ads to market their company and then want to add "some words about who they are", and the CEOs abide by this, would you continue with this? Obviously, you'd have a good long discussion about this with the CEOs, but if they decided to abide by what the printers say, as their (the printers') stipulation is, "do it our way or you get no deal", what would you do?

Bear in mind that this is in a different country, where they were used to, shall we say, a somewhat more dictatorial regime. This is not an excuse, just some extra background.

Thanks in advance. And if these questions come across as stupid, please do be gentle.

Hey, thanks.

I did see it that way, they have the money, the CEOs, they have the power. Just wanted to make sure I'm not overreacting or anything.

I did know what I signed up for in a way. And it does seem to give me a good platform to work from, opening the doors to new stuff.

It's also interesting to get people's perspectives from different countries. I moved around a lot when I was growing up and even later in life. People's attitudes to literature and to writing in general is so vastly different, it's really helpful for me to see how people in different countries see it. In some places you're almost expected to work for free, in others there is no way you would do it. It's like tipping. Because I lived in the States for so long, to me tipping is natural. But you won't believe how many times I've been told off by people from other countries about tipping too much or even tipping the hairdresser, never mind servers in restaurants. This is something along those lines for me. So I'm trying to take the best from all worlds and see where it leads. Plus, for the quarterly, we're talking two different countries.

So far I've been able to always talk to the CEOs because I've kept a level head about me, trying to see the situation from both sides. I just got so much negative feedback from people around me, well-meaning, that I needed some perspective. And I'm really glad I found this forum.

If you don't mind me asking, are you in the US? This is in Europe btw.

Oh no worries. Thanks for answering and the encouragement. I'd never done it before, so it was an interesting opportunity. Apparently there "will be funding and thus pay in the future" but I don't really see that happening. My reasoning was it's good for the experience, and it seems to generate some decent feedback and give me some other opportunities. Plus, this way I get to experiment around a bit, and if I do mess it up, well, it's not too bad, other than your name being ruined or something.

This is a very general statement, but it does seem to me that in some parts it's more common to fall back on the "idealism" approach of doing things for free / getting things done for free. This could just be pure coincidence, but I did notice that when I was talking to American friends and someone wanted your service (catering a party, massage, design, etc.) you would always ask what the person charged. In other parts, you'd expect to be giving the service / getting it for free, if you were lucky possibly in return for another favor. So it's really interesting to see how it connects (or not) to different cultures.

It really differs from country-to-country. Great for negotiating skills though, since it really makes you look at culture, people's perspectives etc. I've had someone in Hungary told me that someone from the U.S. asked if he could leave his suitcase with her, at her stand, he needed to check something out. When he came back, he tipped her, and she was insulted. A friend of mine in Russia told me that in fast food restaurants she never cleared her own table "because there's someone to do that job and they're getting paid for it."

I think computer techs have a bum deal everywhere from the sounds of it.

Sounds like a good friend.